Posts Tagged With: Gardening

We were out of town for about 10 days and we had left our garden under the supervision of Kk Sl. Hubs and H transfered the containers to her house so she wouldn’t have to drop by our house to water it each day. When we picked up the containers on Saturday, we noticed that there were a lot of red Thai chili and several Poblanos, and our lemongrass was thriving, and we had an eggplant, and had two okras.

When we got home, I noticed an inchworm on the carrot plants. And then N found another inchworm and they took them inside the house to put inside the terrarium. However, by the next day, they were gone. Still not found to this day.

We were on our way to go to the park for our tennis Sunday. I decided to check on my garden because it had rained very heavily the night before. As I looking at Thai Chilli plant and exclaiming over how so many leaves were literally gone, I realized something else. I had exclaimed,

“The winds must have blown all the leaves away!”

But as my vision zoomed in and out, I realized I was looking at something else and I screamed,

“Oh My GOD!”

We ended up being late for out tennis, because detaching those caterpillars from the leaves and stems wasn’t as easy as we theorized. They practically clung on for dear life, especially when we tried to nudge them off. Hubs put on his gloves and pried them off. N pried them off with sticks. But eventually they had all 4 caterpillars in glass jars; one for each child.

Today, we observed those caterpillars. N is the one who is the most smitten and obsessed with them caterpillars. In her Zoology Mammals class on Currclick, she has to make a project for a live presentation. While we were observing the caterpillar moving in the jar, I told her,

“Wow, if you’re taking a class on bugs, you could have captured this on video and use it for your presentation.”

She went out to check on them and found another tiny caterpillar crawling on our gravel front yard. Actually, yesterday, we tried to look for larvae on the plants but didn’t see any. We began to wonder if it’s the wind and rain that brought these bugs all of a sudden or what. Because the first one that they found had gone through its life cycle and suddenly we have these new generation of tomato hornworms again. So now we have 5 jars of caterpillars in a jar.

H is making a homemade terrarium for S’ tomato hornworm and it is becoming part of his Science project. S also started making her own terrarium and mashaAllah, they both came up with pretty neat cardboard caterpillar terrariums! They’re planning to transfer the hornworms to these larger shelters for when they’re ready to burrow and pupae.

H is still not done with his. He’s really taking his time in making this with precision.

how it looks from the other side

his blueprints

S’ version. She just wanted it done. I thought the elastic latch idea was neat! H claimed it was his idea when S showed me how this works. This is the top and the lid is kept closed by the rubber band.

When the rubber band is taken off, the lid can be opened.

How it looks like from the side. I love the base for some reason.

N was still exploring outside in the garden area and stumbled upon a white cockroach. I said,

“Baby.”

She said,

“No, it’s the same size as the brown big one.”

“Hmm, albino then maybe,” I replied.

She googled and found out that that is what a cockcroach looks like when it just molted.

Interesting!

The small green inchworm has apparently spun its cocoon, and so this morning we saw this:

No, the photo is not blurry. See the whitish oval around the inchworm? We figure that’s its cocoon.

I figured that the garden is probably teeming with these critters now. So we went to investigate and found these:

N’s guess is that this is the hornworm egg. We checked out some books on caterpillars, butterflies, moths and it seems like this might indeed be the tomato hornworm egg!

We also found this. Have no idea what this is!

The girls are obsessed with these caterpillars. N would check on them to such a point that her math, essays, work are not done on time. S would check on these too. Last night, these caterpillars pooped and their droppings look like tiny blackberries. It’s pretty gross actually. The girls scooped them out so the caterpillar won’t be wallowing in its own filth. They started feeding them our rotting tomatoes too.

See the ‘blackberry’ poop by the lower curve of the caterpillar’s body?

When N first got this tomato hornworm off my Thai Chilli plant. It was still clinging on to the stem!

I told N to make a chart and note down when she feeds them, when they poop, and basically keep a log of observation of these tomato hornworms and the inchworm. I doubt she would be diligent in keeping track of her chart though. Unfortunately, they’re not that big on data collecting. I suppose it becomes a chore when they do that. If I were to insist they do this, I’d have to keep a tab on them. Argh. One more thing for me to remind them about…again and again and again and again. Seriously, I am losing my voice today and today is the day when I had to repeat myself SO many times! I felt like screaming, which I can’t do anyway because my voice box won’t accommodate any high pitch sound production. I had to recite my surah in a manly tone.

This morning, just before we left for Z’s therapy sessions, I noticed the okra plant budding two flowers. This time I was ready, and I hoped the camera’s battery is not exhausted. It wasn’t! Just as I had expected, by the time we were back home, the flowers buds had blossomed! Just beautiful!

It’s interesting how the flower stage of an okra plant is so fleeting. In a length of a few hours, it goes through the stage of budding, flowering, and falling off. Subhanallah! If you think about it, the flower stage for most fruit producing plants don’t last that long. That is food for thought for us. Our prime stage in life doesn’t last that long. In surah Yaseen, Allah talks about the stages of the moon.

Sahih International

And the moon – We have determined for it phases, until it returns [appearing] like the old date stalk. [Yaseen 36:39]

In Sheikh Abdulnasir’s Quran for Family Yaseen class, he talked about how when we look at the sky every night, it is reminder of our life phases, and how life is so fleeting. You go from one stage to the next, and time passes by so quickly. Yet, how we are deluded despite this knowledge, and we think we are invincible. We like to think we can stall death. At this age in my life, I can attest to that. I grew a little panicky over some symptoms of aging. While I do somewhat do a morbid take on it, I also long for my youth. But, really, our life passes by us so rapidly, and pondering over this okra plant really hits home for me.

My favorite season is spring. I love it when the air smells like fresh bulbs and flowers. I love the pastel colors on the trees and on the ground as the petals fall, creating a soft colorful carpet of sweet smelling blossoms. It makes me think of Jannah. It even inspired a poem I had written about Jannah. However, I always wish the flowers would stay longer on the trees though. Before you know it, all the flowers are gone and the trees are completely green, and they stay green all throughout summer. The colors you see now are from the annuals. I love those annuals, but I do love the pastel spring colors better. They somehow lend a softer atmosphere after the frigid cold of winter.

Like those spring blossoms, these okra flowers don’t last that long. I was thinking the other day about how the life cycle of plant is so much like our life cycle. We also go through the seedling stage, and each of us are different, just like different plants need different types of care. Some need support early on, some are hardier. As they grow, they take on different external looks, just like humans also do. Some survive, some don’t. Some get heavily infested by pests and recover, some are stunted. When they get to the bud stage, this is like our adolescence going into the young adult life phase. This is the stage where the plant gets the most oohs and aahs. This is when they are the most admired and looked at. This is their prime so to say. This is when they emit fragrance.

But soon, this stage passes, and those beautiful petals that are so admired, begin to wither and fall off. More important events are taking place inside. The enjoyment phase has to give way for this important stage to occur; the fruit stage. The fruit grows and grows, and now, the plant is no longer adorned with flowers. Some of the withered petals may still be clinging on, signifying a once beautiful past of glory and beauty. Every mother should be able to relate to this stage. This is when a newly married woman gets pregnant. The henna design has faded away, and that ‘just married’ atmosphere has given way to more serious business of adjusting to living with a life-long partner. This is when the nitty gritty of marriage becomes a reality. It is still a beautiful thing. Don’t get me wrong, but there are more important reasons for marriage.

As the fruit emerges, the plant now serves a more productive and beneficial function. We begin to look at it in a new light. We look at it for what it produces, not at what it shows off. The fruit itself is a beauty to behold, much like the flower, but it embodies something more; a continuation of generations. In human terms, this is how we view children too; a continuation of our legacy and lineage. We want to see them thrive and ripen. They can’t be picked prematurely. You want to protect them from pests too, just like you were protected from being infested at the seedling stage. And when they are ready, they will either be picked or will fall off, ready to venture out in the world and make their own decisions.

Those fruits now contain the seeds for the future generation. You have done all you could, and the rest is up to … Allah.

Life is not about you. It’s about something bigger. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Allah has created life for a more important purpose. We need to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. Allah has placed signs and reminders all around us. Allah has given us all intellect for us to use. Those neurons that we have been blessed with, are supposed to spark and make these connections. Connections that eventually light up a clear brightly lit path of a conclusion that there is a Creator, and that this Creator is the One who not only creates, but also owns, sustains and has the ultimate authority. How can we be so full of ourselves then?

I had just taken these photos of the closed up okra flowers. I called Z to come look. I asked him,

“What’s going to happen to these flowers after this?”

He replied,

“They’re going to fall.”

“Then what’s going to come out?” I asked.

“I don’t know, ” he replied.

I pointed to the fat okra that is just ready to be picked.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“I don’t know. “

“Do you know what this is? Do we eat this?”

“Yes. I forgot what it’s called,” he said.

“It’s okra.”

“Oh! Yes! Okra.”

Subhanallah. I didn’t want to plant a garden this year, but H and N insisted, offering to dilligently water it everyday. So that’s how we ended up with a container vegetable garden this year. I’ve always been bad at gardening. The plants always seem to die. But this year, it’s different. My eggplant plant was almost gone. Something seemed to be eating its leaves. I poured diluted dishwashing detergent on it and now it’s thriving. Everyday, as I went out to look at the plants, it struck me as it never has before, that it is Allah, the Rabb, who is taking care of these plants. Not me. I’m only a tool through which their sustenance is given. Just like our employers are the tools through which our financial sustenance are given. Our employers are not the ones who are providing us income. Allah is. There is lesson of tawakkul and gratitude in this. I never thought I’d get that lesson from gardening. Subhanallah. Subhanallah.

Yesterday, on our Quran party day, we also harvested some carrots and cherry tomatoes from our tiny container garden! It reminds me of why I loved hanging out in my father’s orchard in the early mornings when I was growing up. It was a time when the morning dews are still glistening on the banana tree leaves, ready to roll off the smooth surface and fall with a fat plop onto the ground. The green grass was still deliciously wet with dew, making my flip flopped feet(back home, flip flops are wet market attire, but here it’s the ‘in’ thing, which makes me laugh. Amazing how something that is considered the most low standard footwear in one place is considered fashionable in another part of the world!) wet and cool. I loved it when we were living in Kajang, where I spent a lot of time imagining myself a ninja while running around and weaving through the tapioca trees by the man-made fish pond my father liked to fish from. We had fresh fried fish every now and then. There was also a man-dug well, half of which my father enclosed and turned into an ‘outhouse’. The other half, he left open so we could use the water for our kitchen needs. He also slaughtered our own chickens and I remember the headless chickens running around for a bit before completely dying. My grandmother would then dip them in boiling water and pluck the feathers. All tasks such as cleaning fish guts, cleaning slaughtered chickens, cleaning squids and prawns are done in our outdoor kitchen. The indoor kitchen is for cleaner stuff. There was a time where I also kept a baby cobra in a jar for a while before my father turned it loose. That was also when I was introduced to keeping a butterfly jar where I would pick the monarch caterpillars from our lime trees and put them in empty jam jars and feed them till they pupa-ed and turned into beautiful black and orange monarchs!

I think that is the most meaningful part of my childhood. The rest of them I spent in the concrete city of Kuala Lumpur where I would spend my time reading Enid Blyton books and imagining our closets to have secret trapdoors that lead to secret tunnels and such. Imagination and books have always been my closest friend back then.

Suffice it to say, I do love being out in nature, not necessarily to be physically active (like my husband and children (some of them) do) but just to sit, smell the flowers, scrutinize the details, and revel in the beauty of it all. I am happy that the older kids had that in their childhood when we were in Columbus, but I feel somewhat bad for Z because here in the desert, he can’t really just go out and play. We have a xeriscape yard too, so that doesn’t help. But with this little garden, at least he has a smidgeon of an experience hopefully. I love watching his delight at pulling out the carrots!

Z pulling out the carrots. We had gone out to check on it while he was in the shower. So we waited for him to be done so he could do the honor of pulling out those carrots, since we planted them because he was reading The Carrot Seed and this guy has been waiting forever to pull those carrots out!

N found this insect at the okra plant

another insect

Inside, I showed Z this book, which is a very good book to learn about roots! He took it and showed it to his sisters.

Z took this photo. I had returned this book to the library today before having a chance to take more photos of it, but apparently, Z had done some clicking!

I got a new stack of books for Z from the library last week. One of them is Leaves, Leaves, Leaves.

As usual, I read him the book, and he was attentive and quiet. Reminds me of the days when he didn’t have that much of an attention span.

And as usual, he didn’t say much about the book after I was done. I commented on the art in the book, as I tend to usually do with him. This book has an interesting artwork for the pictures. I started pointing out the details of the artwork to Z a while back. One of those books was Eric Carle’s books. I think, I did it because at the time, he was into painting, and I wanted to give him some painting ideas, so I started paying attention to the pictures in the picture books. I never did that with the older kids though. So this is new.

He didn’t seem too fascinated with the artwork in this book though. He seemed more interested in the facts.

But it was at the farmer’s market yesterday that I realized how much he benefited from the book. We were walking back to the van after buying our weekly produce, and he had picked up a leaf off the ground. As I was walking, he showed the leaf to me and said,

“What are these lines?” while pointing at the veins on the leaf.

At first, I didn’t realize what he was asking about. I thought he was asking about the edges of the leaf, because in the book, it also talks about the jagged, wavy, smooth edges of different leaves.

So when I figured out what he was asking about, I said,

“Veins.”

Then he pointed at the stem part of the leaf and said,

“And this is the stem?”

“Yes!”

MashaAllah! It’s really interesting how the learning process is. You read a book to a child. You tell some facts to a child. They may seem like they’re not paying attention, or you may feel like they’re not ‘getting it’ because you’re not seeing any output from your input. But by Allah’s guidance, they’re getting it. They are absorbing it at their own pace, in their own individual ways.

They may not output it right away, so as to assure you that they get it, but they may output it at their own time, and this is when being a teaching parent is rewarding. Because you get to be there when they output what you have inputted. A teacher in school may only be able to see this output from frequent interactions or from tests.

And when tests become a means of making sure the students ‘get it’, it can veer off to a path where learning is no longer happening. Learning is a life process. It happens in the real world. It happens sometimes at random times. Sometimes, it may seem as if you’re not spending a lot of time ‘teaching’ this child, but the little moments that this learning takes place, something very deep and meaningful is unfolding. The child is learning, and making connections in his brain. As a teaching parent, all you need to do is give, and give, and give.

I learned this from Glenn Doman. He says we should just give and give and don’t demand. In other words, avoid testing as much as possible. From this, I have learned that especially with young children, just keep giving (input) and don’t worry too much about the output. They will output in their own times. They will.

Recently, N pulled out one of our carrots. Subhanallah, this is the first time I am seeing a carrot harvested without going through the process of being prepped up for selling. In its true form. It’s exhilarating for Z to see this, I’m sure. He asked if he could eat it. I nodded. He ate it.

Our Okra plant has also flowered. When I went out for Z’s therapy in the morning, I noticed the beautiful flower, just one, but it was beautiful! I wanted to take a picture, but the camera’s battery was exhausted and needed recharging. By the time it was ready though, the flower had closed up. So this is what I got.

The flower had fallen off

The lone okra fattening up and emerging

By the end of the day, the flower had fallen off! What was left in its place was a small yet growing okra! Amazing, subhanallah! I showed all this to Z. He took it all in in his quiet manner, just smiling and nodding when I asked him questions. So far, he hasn’t said anything much, though I did ask him to go and check out the plant to see if any more flowers had come out.

Subhanallah, I was worried that I wasn’t spending much time with him or teaching him much, but come to think of it, I actually really enjoy this kind of learning. I’m just guiding one child, as opposed to 3 children at the same time like I did when the older kids were younger. I always thought handling Z is harder, when I expected it to be simpler because I had handled 3 before. It was like having triplets, almost. But with Z, the dynamics are a little different. I had a lot of learning curves to go through with him, allergies, speech delay and all. But now, I think he is flourishing, beautifully and wonderfully too, alhamdulillah. I love hearing him talk and ask questions. I enjoy seeing his learning process unfold even if it takes the course of a few days or interspersed throughout a few days or even weeks. It’s amazing, just amazing. I am actually able to witness this without having to juggle between 3 kids. It’s a different experience. I’m starting to enjoy it. With the older kids, it’s more nagging. A little frustrating, but as I came to realize very recently after talking to a sister (this deserves its own post), I am thankful that’s my problem with the older kids. Other people have it worse so I should really be grateful that nagging is my main problem with them. So Alhamdulillah.

I started going to the library again this week, and got some books for Z. One of them is Plant a Little Seed by Bonnie Christensen. I read it to Z, and there was a section that talks about the stages of fruit formation, from how it starts as a flower and then the petals fall off, and then the fruit comes out. Since we had planted a garden this year, this is quite relevant to Z, so as I read it to him, I also recalled our gardens and how it was when we planted the carrot seeds, and how we saw the shoots and then how it keeps growing everyday, and most importantly, Who makes it grow.

With Z, whenever something hooks his mind, he grows quiet and reflective. He’s not the type to jump up and down with excitement in the discovery of learning. He seems to swallow it gradually and you can see it in his expression and eyes. At times, when I introduce a topic to him, I would give him some time to digest it. I notice that after a few days, he would come back to it on his own, as if he’s been thinking about it, and he himself would bring it up to me out of the blue. Then I would respond with ‘continued’ ‘teaching’, as much as he can take in.

With this, a spontaneous science session ensued. I started googling fruit formation on youtube and found this:

He’s hooked. And seems to understand what it’s talking about. Later on, I took him outside and showed him our plants, particularly my Poblano and Thai Chilli plants which are flowering and fruiting. He didn’t say much about this, but I’m hoping that his quiet style of digesting information is still in the works.

one okra coming out

okras

cherry tomatoes, still green

ripe ready for picking

the poblano emerging, surrounded by dying flower petals

poblano

the Thai Chilli

you can see some of the carrot top above ground. We still haven’t pulled them out yet though. I have a feeling a lot are tiny because we planted a lot of seeds in one pot. This is the first time we ever planted carrots though…inspired from the book Carrot Seed from the library that Z read.

Amazingly, some mushrooms grew in one of the pots where we had carrots growing. I had noticed some white powdery stuff on the soil in the pot and weeks later, we noticed this.

While he was playing with google map, he landed on Aldabra Islands. I happened to come to him at the computer and saw the islands as he was zooming out, and subhanallah, I was amazed! I asked him to zoom back in for me, and I called the kids to see the island. As I kept on googling, I learned that it’s an atoll. I started youtubing it and found this, for Z.

and then we ended up here: We even recognized the Brain Coral in this video!

and then here:

A while ago, we had read this book Coral Reefs by Jason Chin. It was one of those books he is hooked on and likes to read again and again. He loved reading this book so much that I ended up drawing the Red Grouper fish and the gobies for him to color. I drew it, scanned it and printed it for him. We focused on the fact that the gobies have a symbiotic relationship with the grouper in that the gobies would clean the grouper’s mouth and scales by eating whatever it was that was on the grouper. So when we saw the grouper and the gobies in the youtube video above, it was an exhilirating moment for me, maybe more than it was for him! I was over excited. But, it reinforced the information for him, and this kind of learning is one I love! So alhamdulillah!

He ended up watching youtube videos of coral reefs, and eventually I had to go take my nap. I offered if he wanted to watch the Planet Earth DVDs we had bought from a garage sale and that was when things turned downhill. I told my older son to get the DVD for him and put it on, but as H got to the computer, he got on Berenstain Bears on Youtube. Then a battle between them ensued, and me too, and subhanallah, I just took my nap and Z’s session on coral reef and nature on video ended just like that, with Berenstain Bears.

Sometimes, it’s hard. You have older kids who exasperate you, who sometimes help you, but most of the time just maybe exasperate you like in this incident. Then you have a younger child who want to learn or whose heart is still pure, but you’re exhausted and need your rest, and this happens. Subhanallah….reflecting back, I have to say it was easier when they were all younger and their hearts were purer. My older kids are not bad, but sometimes, you do notice that difference between the inclination of the hearts at certain ages. You can’t help but notice it. And it scares you, and it makes you feel wistful at them growing up. I have to say I feel maybe more apprehension at them growing older. They’re entering the more dangerous territory now, and I feel helpless as a mother. I miss those years when they were younger and more innocent. I wish I could turn time back.

Sure, I still have Z, but even with him, as you can see from above, sometimes, it’s hard, because I still have the older kids to tend to and deal with, and my own older and growing older self to take care of. Subhanallah.

I didn’t want to start a garden this year, because last year, I completely abandoned my flowers, so I didn’t want to torture them anymore. But the kids wanted a vegetable garden. Plus, Z had been reading The Carrot Seed, so I gave in when they said they want to have a garden this year, but not a lame flower garden that you can’t do anything with. (Well)

So we bought some carrot seeds, and planted them. Our old pots were still sitting around with the soil in them, soil that had dried out. I bought new potting soil and we just added it to the old soil and worked them out with water and a trowel.

It was nice to see Z getting to do this. The older kids grew up gardening too when we were in Colz, and it’s one thing I want them to experience at that age. I wish we have ground that we can directly garden in though, but oh well. Alhamdulillah for the pots.

I had told the kids I didn’t want a garden because I don’t think I can take care of it this year, seeing as how I abandoned it last year. But N and H persisted in saying they can take care of it, and that they will water the plants.

Well, they have and they haven’t. I’ve been the one eager to check on the chilli plants and the okra, and eggplant. I also replanted my lemongrass. We had gone to Dallas at the end of June, and we were gone for a weekend. I was fretting about how to have the plants watered while we were gone. Hubs took the pots to the masjid because they have an automatic sprinkler. But when we came back and got them back, some of my lemongrass stalks were gone. I was thinking it might be the young kids. Can’t explain it otherwise. But Alhamdulillah, we still have 3 left. I have planted maybe like 5-6 stalks.

the carrot seeds

sowing the seeds…many hands make work light

The plants are growing quite well alhamdulillah. Everytime I go to check on them, I remind myself subhanallah, that it’s Allah who is nourishing and nurturing these plants to grow. Gardeners usually take pride in their gardens and attribute it to their care and attention to the plants, but really, it’s Allah. There are a couple of times where it rained and I was thinking,

“Oh Alhamdulilah, we don’t have to water the plants today.”

And whether they get infested by bugs or not, is also up to Allah. That is one thing I don’t like about caring for plants; that they get diseases I don’t know how to handle. In the first year I planted chillies, but they were infested with diseases and then I just gave up trying anymore and resorted to flowers. But this year so far, the plants seem to be thriving. Alhamdulillah.

the carrot seeds emerged.

the carrot seeds now

I don’t actually know when we could pull up the carrots, but I’m guessing they would be tiny because we kind of crowded the pots but planted all the seeds.

N’s tomato plant

N’s tomato plant now

Okra from the farmer’s market along with the tomato, chillies and eggplant

the okra seedling now

eggplant seedling

the egglant seedling now, though it still had that one weak leaf that I just removed this morning

Thai Chilli

Poblano

the Chilli plants now, a lot of flowers now

my lemongrass before some were gone

our vegetable garden in May/June

our vegetable garden now

After we came back from Dallas and got the pots back from the masjid, the kids were looking at the plants when they found a huge hideous caterpillar. I’m not exaggerating. It was HUGE! S and N were then waiting for Jn to pick them for their volunteering with the Boys and Girls Club of LC, and I heard screams and then they barged inside the house. We ended up finding a huge jar and before they left they dropped the huge caterpillar in it. Then they filled it with soil.

the kids filled a big plastic jar with soil and placed the Tomato Hornworm they found in it and covered it with plastic wrap and secured it. Reminds me of my childhood when I used to ‘raise’ Monarch in glass jars.

When they googled, it was a Tomato Hornworm, which they aptly found at N’s tomato plant. Good thing they caught it. Subhaanallah, think about it, Allah had decreed that they find it, so that the tomato plant can thrive. It apparently is a pest for tomato plants. The kids then researched it and the jar sat in the sunroom for the longest time. When I saw them covering it with the cloth, I asked why. They said that it needs darkness. It had apparently turned to the pupa stage subhanallah. Maybe that was why it was so fat.

Feeding the Tomato Hornworm, leaves from N’s tomato plant

This morning, at suhoor, I was checking out the house because of a certain smell I woke up to. I went to the sunroom and heard a fluttering sound. It came from the jar. The pupa had finally turned into a moth, after a month. S was even going to dump it out because she thought it was dead. Subhanallah, so N took some photos of it today. We haven’t released it yet though, because we wanted to release it as far away from our house as possible so it wouldn’t harm the tomato plant, or lay eggs there.